Carved In Ice
by MiladyGirl
Summary: Garcia thinks Blake is a cold, distant person, until she finds out what's really hiding beneath the surface. Set early in season 8, but with spoilers for season 9 finale.


**A/N**

I normally don't touch upon the Ethan thing because I dislike that plotline and didn't think it fitted Blake's character at all. Plus I avoid watching season 9 finale because of obvious reasons.

However, sometimes I do touch upon plotlines I disagree with anyway, especially when I'm tired and vulnerable.

Blake angst with Garcia comfort. Takes place in the beginning of season 8.

(Also, I'd like to thank everyone who reached out to me, for your support and sweet messages and even fic gifts. :D I'm doing better now; not a lot, but still better. And my horse is fine.)

* * *

The new one was scary. Not only because Garcia missed Emily and loved her dearly, but because Blake was… well, scary.

Too by-the-book.

Too driven.

Too harsh.

It felt as if she could see right through everything, like she found absolutely nothing impressive. Brown eyes would normally seem warm, but there was nothing warm, generous or inviting about Alex Blake. It was as if she was carved out of a block of ice. She had a beautiful smile, but on the few occasions she ever let it show, it never reached all the way to her eyes. Sometimes she reminded Garcia of one of those harshly reined-in dressage horses you could sometimes see on TV; groomed to perfection, polished and shiny and squeezed in between tightly held reins and sharp spurs. Other times she was like a silently boiling volcano; you could almost feel the ground tremble as it shook itself out of a slumber and then went back to dormancy, merely threatening the surroundings with the possibility of an eruption.

But most of the time, she was like a statue of brilliant but hostile ice. Garcia was put off by the ruthlessness she saw in Blake's eyes, of the quiet despair that seemed to radiate from the older woman like radioactivity. It wasn't that she was _afraid_ of Blake; there was no hesitation that she belonged to the good guys, but…she was still scary.

Until the day Garcia stayed late to fix an annoying bug in the computer system and, while running a full system scan, went to see if she could find anything spiked with caffeine. That led to her walking in on the BAU's resident Ice Queen dissolved in tears.

The other woman sat by her desk in the empty and almost completely dark bullpen, curled into herself, crying so violently she nearly choked on her own tears. It was an image of complete and almost childlike abandonment, and Garcia stopped in the doorway, not believing what her eyes told her. For a moment she nearly considered the option of tiptoeing out of there and pretend she had never witnessed this scene, but Garcia had never been able to perform an uncaring act like that one and would not be able to this time either.

She closed the distance between them and put a hand on the other woman's shaking shoulder.

"Alex," she said, trying in vain to find anything to follow this up with, but came up empty, so she said it again. "Alex."

Blake immediately froze all over again.

"Please leave me alone," she said with as much dignity as she could muster - which in this situation was almost none.

"No," Garcia said, and her heart ached as she could feel the other woman's every defense mechanism kicking in at once. Blake's shoulder was hot to the touch, but she was stiff as an icicle. Unrelenting, unbending, refusing to thaw. "I'm sorry, but I can't, not like this."

"I'm fine," Blake snapped, still hiding her face into her jacket.

"I know you're the linguist and all, and I'm just the computer geek, but you don't look like you fit that description, not right now anyway. I'm a really good listener, I know it doesn't seem like it because I talk, I mean, I talk like _all_ the time, but I actually am so just try me."

Blake's tear-swollen eyes stared at her, evaluating her with the same chilling calculation that had unsettled Garcia from the start.

"Today my son would have turned twenty," Blake said after a few moments of hesitation. "If he had lived."

"I didn't know…"

"Of course not," Blake nearly spat. "That's not exactly something I tell people out of the blue. How I failed at the most basic task in the world; keeping my baby alive."

Here was the volcano hidden beneath that glacier, hot magma trapped under thick layers of ice. So _this_ was what Garcia had sensed in Blake from the start; not a disdain for other people, but a deeply rooted one for herself.

"We couldn't do a thing. Just watch. _Pray_." She spoke the word like it tasted bad, then fell silent and wiped at her eyes before continuing in a softer voice. "His name was Ethan."

"What happened?" Garcia asked and sat down on a chair next to Blake, gently touching her arm. This time, the linguist didn't flinch. Maybe because she was too tired, or maybe because she had come to realise that she needed that touch. Garcia hoped it was the latter. Blake took a deep breath and started to speak - it wasn't a complicated story, the most painful ones seldom are - and it didn't take long.

Ethan had succumbed to a neurological disease that the doctors still had no proper name for. For years there had been repeated panic rides to the hospital, waits for tests that showed nothing, desperate love that in the end didn't conquer all. Blake didn't have to spell out for Garcia the horror it was to watch your own child in such pain and be able to do nothing.

Once the fight had ended in bitter defeat, Blake had thrown herself headfirst into work to keep from dealing with her grief. Her husband had gone to counselling, but she refused to go with him. A marriage that had once been rocksteady was slowly grinded down. They decided to take a pause; not quite a separation but something much like it. James signed on to work abroad. Alex rose through the ranks in the Bureau. Then came the infamous Amerithrax case, and while the mistakes made had not been hers alone, she _had_ been the one in charge. She often wondered if it had been distraction that caused it. If she had failed because she simply couldn't hold things together any longer. Erin Strauss had certainly implied that on more than one occasion.

Garcia listened to everything without interrupting, and with each poisonous event Blake revealed, the uptight, tense coldness of her demeanour faded a little. Finally she ran out of words and tears took over again, but instead of withdrawing she actually leaned into Garcia's embrace, accepting her comfort. She didn't have to say it out loud, it was obvious that she rarely, if ever, accepted comfort, at least not from other human beings. Garcia realised that up till now she hadn't known anything personal about Blake, and she was normally one to befriend others very quickly. It made her feel a bit ashamed, as Blake was someone who definitely could use a friend.

"I don't feel like I really know you," Garcia began, sounding almost shy. "But I want to. I don't know how you feel, but I feel that those we loved and lost should still be with us, and not forgotten. If you want to, we could go out to dinner in celebration of Ethan's birthday."

Blake stared at her for so long Garcia wondered if it had been the worst thing she could possibly say, but then the brunette smiled. This time it did reach her eyes.

"Yes," she said softly. "I think I'd like that."

"Good. I'm just going to go and finish the system check I'm running, but then we can go."

"I'm going to wash my face," Blake said. "I suspect I've got mascara everywhere."

"Um… well, if you bought it as waterproof you might want to ask for a refund," Garcia replied as diplomatically as she could, and Blake actually laughed at this. That was another thing Garcia had never seen Blake do.

"I'll be right back," she said and gave Blake a final pat on the shoulder. Blake nodded, and as Garcia stepped outside the room, she heard Blake make a phone call. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but she heard the beginning, and it warmed her heart.

" _It's me, James. I just wanted to tell you that I miss you."_

The ice was melting, and the volcano had stilled. Alex Blake was no longer scary… and it seemed she wasn't quite as scared of herself, either.


End file.
